So, you want a website? (Part 2)

Once the domain name is purchased, you then tell the domain registrar to point the domain to the address of the server you purchased hosting from. The hosting company will have their own name servers. These are servers that direct the people trying to locate your website. Let us compare a name server to an apartment building directory. You are in the lobby, and know the name of the person you want to visit, but not the apartment number. Look in the directory, and you have it. So, the internet surfer has click on your link, they are taken to your hosting company’s web server, and then the name server tells them where your site is located on their servers. The internet visitor sees none of the behind the scenes work, they just get to your site.

Now, you have a name, and a hosting company. You then setup all the emails you need for each department, or person and configure your email software to access those accounts on (outlook, thunderbird, Eudora, etc.) they will retrieve the email from the server and deliver it to your home pc. You may also try simplify They are offering free webspace hosting for a limited time.

You then need to build a website and promote it. Companies offering these services are typically split into smaller specialty services – website designers create the graphics, webmasters build the site and place it on the servers. All in one sites such as onsiteguys can build the site with you, make it available on the internet and maintain it for you.

Each change modification to the website requires it to be placed on the host server. Website maintenance and updating is an ongoing, never ending task, and unless you learn to publish your website on your own, be prepared to pay for updates on a regular basis. Each time you need something changed, you have to call the webmaster, or graphics company to make those changes. Making them go live will cost you at minimum an hour of labor.

Shopping carts, e-commerce and credit card payments also require extensive integration with your website, and cost more money. These are considered add on services to your hosting package. Prices vary, and some may include some components free. If you intend on selling products, you may consider using paypal initially, as they are easier to setup. Accepting credit card payments requires a merchant account, and has monthly fees, as well as percentages off of the sales made.

Promoting and marketing your website is if not the most important fact in success. People have to know that it exists. Simply creating a website does nothing for promoting it. You may enlist the services of a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) professional, or purchase search engine submission software to assist.

In a nutshell, decide on a product or service, buy the name and hosting, build the site, promote it, and keep it current by updating it regularly.

If you are unsure about whether you need a site, think of what is already available for free:

 
-          photo storage, photo albums, and photo sharing
-          blogs
-          product reviews
-          online file sharing, storage
-          music – storage, sharing, playlists
-          web storage space (not for domain names, just empty space)
-          paypal, google pay (for buying items over the internet)
-          free shopping carts – they take a commission off your sales

You may find that what you need already exists – for free, or a lot less than you anticipated.

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So, you want a website? (Part 1)

Having your own website means freedom of speech, your own personal place to rant and rave, or somewhere just to setup shop. No matter what the intention, you can do just about anything you need to do online.

Before you start planning and spending the money to get the ball rolling, take a few moments to think about what its real purpose is. You may be surprised to know that many services and products related to websites are free and ultimately can save you lots of time and headaches. Before we talk about those, let’s first describe the website checklist;

Requirements:

–        a product or service

–        domain name

–        hosting and email

–        marketing and promotion

–        ongoing maintenance, webpage updates

–        more marketing and promotion!

–        More updates…

I’ll not get into the details of a business plan and research. We’ll assume you are 100% convinced and are ready to take the plunge. The first step is coming up with a domain name. You need to come up with many, and alternative spellings, etc. A good place to search for names is domains bot. .com domain names cost about $8 US each. Each domain name type has a different price, and there are no set prices. Shop around!

If you need to generate names, try dnwiz. Once you have a name, then you need to give it an address. Every webpage on the internet has an address. Think of it as a postal address. People need to be able to find it. It’s address is called an IP address. An IP address will be automatically assigned by the hosting domain registrar – which is where you “pays your money, and gets your name”

Once you have purchased the domain name, you have an address, but no house to put your website. The next step is to find a host. We hosting is typically a company with a room full of network servers split into many shared websites. One server could house thousands of separate websites, all completely independent of each other. This is called shared hosting, and typically runs about $3 – 20 per month for the average hosting package. Watch out for the setup fees;  where the hosting is charged monthly, as well as an annual setup fee. Most setup fees can be waived if you purchase hosting by the year.

Hosting packages are defined by many factors, including:

-          storage space you will need for your website (how many gigabytes)

-          bandwidth requirements (how many visitors will you have each month, and what are they doing at your site? Reading, or getting data, music, or other files from you? (again, measured in gigabytes)

-          Uploading – can people give you files and put them on your website?

-          Number of email accounts you need

-          Storefront (e-commerce, shopping cart, can you accept credit cards)

-          Database – will users register to login, will they store any personal information, or interact with your website in any way

-          Support for creating and publishing the website with Microsoft FrontPage, or Adobe Dreamweaver (you need special software on the server to allow you to publish the website from your own computer, directly to the internet)

To locate a hosting package you will need to shop around, and may look at hostsearch.

To be continued tomorrow…

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Microsoft Office – Give it the Boot!

Microsoft PowerPoint is a component of Microsoft Office. It is used for presentations and slideshows. Microsoft Office itself is a complete suite of applications similar to Lotus 123 for spreadsheets, and WordPerfect for word processing. The problem with Microsoft Office and other proprietary data formats is compatibility – or the lack thereof. The computer industry has very few standards that benefit the consumer. There are thousands of standards for the computer workings and components to make a computer but diddly- squat for the end user. Microsoft would like to have their Office product line be the standard, Corel would like WordPerfect and so on and so on. In the bustle and haste leaves you and I scratching our heads to keep up. Which package do we purchase with our hard earned dollars? What if we don’t like it, or if it doesn’t work for our purposes? Can I return it? Guess What – no. Although to be fair, that is not a blanket statement. Most retailers will put up a fuss for software returns, and will not accept them. But not all of them will refuse. The issue is what’s to stop us from buying it, installing it, copying it and registering it – only to return it and get our money back – while still having a fully functioning copy at homer? Imagine the next person to purchase your returned item – when they try to register it and it fails the registration. Of course You can call software support, but would still be an annoyance.

As with anything successful, there is always something new to come along and copy it, or try to improve upon it. The case being alternatives to Microsoft Office, well to Microsoft – but that’s another story – Two relatively new players in the game are Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and OpenOffice.org. Google’s solution offers a word processor, and a spreadsheet solution. Both are completely free! Open Office has slightly more applications in their suite, including a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a slideshow and presentation program and a drawing utility.  Google’s offering doesn’t require any downloads or installation of software, while Open Office does. Once again though, it’s free.

If you absolutely must have Microsoft Office applications, you may download the free viewers for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access. If you need to edit them, then use the free solutions from Google and OpenOffice.

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Getting Stuff for free?

Further to my article (getting stuff for – really?) there are alternate methods to get those goodies for free. These are called paid referrals, referral trading, and conga lines.

Paid referrals and referral trading is a simple concept, where you trade referrals with others. Each helping the other complete their required offers and get the freebie. You complete an offer under their referral code for them to receive the signup credit, and they reciprocate for your free site offer. http://www.refstop.com/ is an example of a community driven website that helps users’ trade referrals. As I mentioned in my previous article, I paid for referrals (pay4trade) which you can do as well. Paid referrals cost somewhere in the $5 – $50 range depending on the value of free item you are after, and the amount of time you wish to advertise the pay 4 trade. Refstop.com charges you a fee to advertise your trade t its members which typically costs $5 – 15 for 10 days. Site members can rate each other on how quickly they completed the offer, and how quickly they were paid for the signup. I spent $60 in advertising, and $180 in referral costs. Each of my signups made $20 on average for completing an offer under my referral account.

Conga lines are like chain letters, where you signup on a list, and graduate up a level as new people are added to the list. These are quite popular, however very hard to manage. Here today gone tomorrow.

Offers vary from medicine to audio clubs. Each offer has different nuances. Many offers will require a credit card to sign up, and will require an ongoing subscription. Other offers may allow you to cancel after a trial period ends, and often will refund your complete costs. It is your responsibility to learn the conditions and ask questions before you take the plunge. Offers may automatically renew a subscription without your consent – which you gave upon your initial signup, and will require you to call them and have the subscription cancelled. Check availability in your country, they may charge you additional shipping. In my case, I had to signup 2 additional referrals to get shipping to Canada. I opted for the paypal cash instead of the 10 referrals for the xbox 360.

Best advice:
- decide on what item you want, estimate its value in a retail store
- research the different websites for the cost (number of referrals) and how much it may cost you to get this item
- check the websites for the offers that you can complete
- check community websites, forums, and other groups to get opinions and advice
- verify that offers are valid in your country, if you get the free item, does it cost more to ship to you?
- what is the general opinion of the site’s reliability, technical support, policies, referral completion time limits
- is the item new, or refurbished (which it may very well be)
- how will you get signups (you cannot spam, if you get caught, they will negate your account)
- will you use conga lines, or referral trading sites

Helpful links: (for your information only, I do not condone or have affiliations with these sites)

Wikipedia (general information)
http://www.refstop.com/ (referral trading, user forums, and pay4trades)
conga lines (general information about conga lines)
forums (refstop user groups)

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Dual Display’s in Windows XP

If you’ve upgraded your computer display to LCD, your old CRT monitor most likely collects dust somewhere. Sending it to the local dump is not so easy. It is a very dangerous item. Its CRT (Cathode Ray Vacuum) tube must be disposed of properly. Usually you can pay a small fee to have the local dump accept it. Can you still use it? With Windows XP you can.
Windows XP supports two physical displays to be used on one computer.
First, you must determine what type of video adapter your computer has, and what physical slot-type your motherboard supports. If your display adapter is an internal integrated (onboard) video adapter, adding another display adapter will not work. It’s either internal or external. If your motherboard has (internal) or integrated video, you’ll have to buy a dual-head video adapter, or two separate display adapters. Dual-head display adapters have two video connector ports. Their drivers support dual display. They do cost quite a bit more, too.
If your computer has an AGP type slot, you can only add a PCI card. AGP slots are built into computer motherboards for the specific purpose of AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) video adapters. Motherboards can only physically support one of these cards. If you want to add another display adapter, it has to be a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) type of slot. Modern motherboards are dropping the AGP slot. Ultimately, there won’t be any support for them. PCI-X express (the next generation of PCI technology) is the standard today. It allows Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to come of age along with dual core CPU’s, and now dual core GPUs. They can even operate in pairs, called SLI mode – Scalable Link Interface – which is a special technology allowing you to pair up video cards to work in tandem. Imagine also having the ability to have up to four separate video cards in one computer. This is available now, from many of the major motherboard manufacturers.
Adding a second display adapter is not always easy and may not always work. If you are planning on taking this advice, your first step should take your tower to a local computer shop, to test out some of their display adapters. Of if you are the adventurous type, at least keep your sales receipt in case you need to return the item.
To be safe, purchase a PCI display adapter with at least 32Mb of onboard memory. Once installed, plug one monitor into each of the adapters and power them on. Windows XP will boot and ultimately find the new adapter card. Install the drivers (either on CD, or download them) and reboot the PC. Once rebooted, you can now configure and enjoy your new dual display system.
To configure the dual displays, right-mouse-click anywhere on the desktop, select properties.
The last tab is called settings, and you will notice that you have two monitors, labeled respectively.
Identify your favorite monitor by clicking the Identify button. If your favorite monitor is #2, simple drag it to the left to make it #1. You have the option of setting your desktop preferences; to have both monitors act as one; both act independently, as well as different colour quality, and screen resolutions. You may stretch the desktop to fill both monitors by checking Extend My Windows Desktop onto this monitor. Both your monitors should have the same screen size, maybe even think about buying a couple used CRT monitors to have a nice symmetrical look to your workstation.
You can actually have your e-mail open in one display, your icons and Internet browser on another.

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Temp files? What are they good for?

Temporary files – or temp files – as they are commonly referred to, are everywhere. When you add software to your computer, change a setting, browse a webpage and create a document, a temporary file is created. Some are beneficial, most are a nuisance and take up precious hard drive space. What’s more, cleaning them is not so easy because they often reside in many different folders. It can be quite a task locating them and deleting them. Some of them are can even be operating system required files. Delete one of these and you’ll quickly learn the hard way that temporary files cannot haphazardly deleted with a fell swoop of the delete key. For the most part, yes they can be, and if they are needed by the operating system, they won’t easily be deleted.

Some say that temporary files are the droppings of bad software; when a developer forgets to include the instructions to clean out the temporary files. When a program is installed, or requires large amounts of data, they will often create a temporary file. These usually end with file extensions such as tmp, or a leading ~ tilde in the filename. Internet explorer and Microsoft Office utilize capitalized alphanumeric folder names to store temporary data. If you are working on a word document, a temporary version is opened as well until you save it.

Not all temporary files are bad though, you may often find log files that signify the process of an installation or an update to a piece of software. One example may be installing Microsoft Office, and then reinstalling it to add or remove a component. Office leaves temporary files that are used to aid users in modifications, upgrades, un-installations and so on. Microsoft is not the only software designer to use temporary files and you will find temporary files in Linux as well. Just as dust mites grow and multiply, so do temp files! The million dollar question – how do you get rid of them? There are some computer data-swiffer’s and electric broom’s to clean up the data-mites. If you care to use the 3^rd party route, then look here for some great cleanup utilities. If you are curious as to where to look for them, and what they look like, start off:

-          Your local user profile (c:\documents and settings\(your username)\local settings\temp

-          Same as above, but temporary internet files (easily cleaned by opening Internet Explorer, selecting Tools\Internet Options\Temporary Internet Files – delete

 

You may also locate more temp files in the following folders:

-          C:\temp

-          C:\windows\temp

-          C:\windows\system32\temp

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The death of the Screensaver!

Screen savers on computers have been around since the first versions of Windows. The purpose was to save the monitor from screen burn in. Early versions of computer monitors used a phosphorescent backing on the inside of the screen to help display colors. If the image on the screen was not changed frequently, the image would actually burn into the phosphorous permanently. Screen savers are designed to activate after a set period of computer inactivity. Original screen savers on Windows 3.1 systems would display the windows logo in random on the screen. Then came the starfield effect, where you could pretend you are Captain Kirk of the enterprise and watch the stars zoom by from your captain’s quarters.

If zooming through space is not your thing, how about your own marquis banner. You can customize your own text, text colour, size and text direction. Pretty snazzy stuff!

Soon after Windows 3x came Windows 95 and the screen saver desktop basically stays unchanged. There was of course the option to make your own slideshow screen saver. Windows would collect images from your favorite folder and randomize them.  Many 3^rd party sites popped up offering customizable screensavers for download. Really, this is where the spyware and adware started. Screen savers became no-no’s and were spyware and adware breeding grounds. Still, very popular and very much a part of our computer  persona’s.

For a short time, there was the option to use the active desktop with your screen saver. This would allow you to place a website, or an animated picture on the desktop. The screen saver would be tied into the active desktop with the same type of theme. Microsoft released a package called Plus! which included additional games, desktop themes and matching screen savers. Not much has changed in the world of screen savers until now.

Microsoft Windows Vista has taken the screen saver to a new level. Vista offers a free download for certain releases of Vista Ultimate, it is called Dreamscene. This offers some great features for your desktop background. Essentially, allowing you the option to use video as the desktop background. Dreamscene includes sample videos such as a waterfall, a flower complete with bees and all! You can choose videos, pictures, tiled background patterns, or the standard one color desktop. Nothing like having your favorite music band or family gathering as your desktop! One limitation however– there is no sound on these desktop videos. T o change the desktop to a video:

-          Download the Windows Vista Dreamscene an then reboot.

-          Right click on your desktop and select Personalize.

-          Click desktop wallpaper.

-          Open the drop down list to select Video File.

-          Browse to your favorite video and select it.

Note, only certain types of video files are support, primarily AVI and WMV. Your selected video file will now be displayed as your wallpaper.

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